


When He Found Out

by phandomcryptid



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Autistic Phil Lester, Fluff and Angst, M/M, This is more about Phil than about any relationship, autistic author, but theres some things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 04:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14783675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phandomcryptid/pseuds/phandomcryptid
Summary: Phil has something he hasn't told anyone. And he can't just keep it quiet anymore. He's autistic, and it's time Dan found out.





	When He Found Out

**February 2017**

It wasn’t like Phil to give a shit what people online thought about him. Well… it wasn’t like him to care about a single comment, or a single post. But when it came to people saying something en masse, it definitely got to him.  
If he was being honest, it wasn’t really what people were saying at first that bothered him. In fact, nearly every post, tweet, and comment he saw mentioning it was along the lines of “this is a comforting thought to me,” or “seeing someone popular being like me helped me come to terms with myself.” And it was great, he was helping people by just being himself openly. That was perfect.  
  
Then the problems started coming up. The way the internet tended to… well, make a massive argument out of anything and everything ruined it. What got to him was the fact that everyone who was just having a good time finding comfort in the fact that he was like them needed to add a disclaimer, every post either starting with “theory: is phil lester autistic??” or at some point in it saying “I don’t actually think he’s autistic necessarily, there’s just a lot of traits and it’s really nice for me.” and they were still getting hate for it. The dozens of posts making fun of people who thought he might be autistic, the people flat out saying that he wasn’t autistic because “we would know.” The people saying that if anything, he was “slightly autistic.” The posts hating on people who found comfort in the fact that he shared traits with them.  
  
Those were the ones that bothered him. The ones that thought it was a bad thing, that thought people finding comfort in someone was a bad thing. They bothered him because the people who thought he was weren’t hurting anything. Because if it was helping them, who cared if they were right or not? Because since he’d figured everything out, he’d been so much happier. Hell, when his parents had told him he was so happy that he wasn’t just Weird anymore. His type of Weird had a name, and that meant that it wasn’t just him.  
  
The name had always been a good thing to him. Though he guessed the fact that he never talked about it did little to show it.  
  
He supposed he couldn’t blame them for thinking he wasn’t. He’d never talked about it. Hell, nobody knew except his parents and Martyn, not even Dan. And Dan knew everything about him. But when they’d met, Dan was still saying some pretty bad things. A lot. And he couldn’t be mad. Dan was 18, and absolutely everyone was saying those things. Then it just never came up. Then it had been too long and Dan might wonder why he hadn’t mentioned it before.  
But when Dan mentioned it in a live show, he couldn’t just stay quiet anymore. It made sense that he was upset. After all, he was right, people couldn’t be sure about someone that they watched through the internet. He just had to wait until Dan was done and came back to sit with him.  
  
“I watched your live show.” Phil said as Dan sat down next to him, already turning on the TV to find something to watch.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
It wasn’t unusual. They’d do it sometimes to see what the other was saying, or just because they felt like it. Phil more often than Dan, or at least he thought so. He just liked hearing Dan’s voice, and while he could hear him through the walls it was sometimes nice to hear him more clearly.  
  
Phil hesitated. Dan had seemed almost upset when talking about people implying that he might be autistic. But he knew that if he backed out now, he might never tell him. And now that he was thinking about it, he really did want him to know.  
  
“They’re not wrong.” he muttered, staring down at his hands in his lap. “About me being autistic, I mean. I am.”  
  
He kept his eyes on his hands, the change in lighting alerting him to the fact that Dan had turned off the TV again. Apparently, this was going to be a long conversation.

\---  
Dan was starting to catch on to how this conversation was going. Phil would bring up another weird thing he did, now or when he was a kid, and it wasn’t a matter of if it was an autism thing, it was a matter of how it was an autism thing.  
  
“So, I have a really really sensitive sense of smell.”  
  
“Yeah? That’s a weird way of telling me I need a shower.” Dan said, smiling at Phil.  
  
Phil laughed, happy that even now, they could joke with each other. They both knew the line, and neither crossed it.  
  
“Well, there’s a couple things with it. Yes, I can tell when you need a shower before you do and it’s very frustrating.” he said, smiling at Dan. “But mostly it’s weird stuff. Like, all dairy products smell like they could be spoiled, and any time someone in the building is making pancakes I can smell it and hope that you’ve gotten up early and decided to make pancakes.”  
  
“That must be very disappointing, given that I never get up early to make pancakes.”  
  
“It always is.” Phil said, turning and leaning against Dan. He was getting overwhelmed, tired of actually using words.  
  
“So… I’ve heard people talking about like… sensory overload and meltdowns. What’s that like?”  
  
Phil stared at him for a second. “Awful.” he mumbled. “Sensory overload… there’s all these simulation things on youtube and they’re all wrong. It’s like… you know when you come out of a cinema and it seems so bright?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“That’s what it’s like.”  
  
“That… fucking sucks.”  
  
Phil nodded, cuddling closer to Dan.  
  
The problem was, there was too much to explain, and Phil had actually needed to fend off tears a few times already. He was getting more and more overwhelmed, having never actually talked about it before. And autistic or not, Dan knew him.  
  
“Phil, are you alright?” He reached out, taking Phil’s hand.  
  
Phil didn’t answer, really, but it was obvious that he wasn’t. He was anxious and overwhelmed, and it was too much effort to speak anymore. He just paused for a moment, then held Dan against him and leaned back. He shuffled down a bit until he was mostly laying down, holding Dan on top of him. It was a bit awkward at first, until Dan adjusted himself so his head was on Phil’s chest and they were both as fully on the sofa as two men taller than the sofa was long could be.  
  
The pressure had Phil calming down immediately. It had been years since he’d gotten someone to do this for him, he usually had to deal with just using his comforter year-round, which was nowhere near enough weight for him. He used to have Martyn do it when they were kids. He’d understood that Phil needed it, and they were young enough that it was acceptable to be… well, Weird. But as they got older it started feeling weird to both of them, and by the time Martyn was 14 he had deemed it too weird to do. So Phil completely lost his best way to calm down.  
  
After almost an hour, when Dan noticed that Phil’s anxiety had mostly died down, he spoke up again. “Phil?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Do you want to tell people?”  
  
The question hung in the air for a moment as Phil thought. He’d almost started sobbing and had actually been on the edge of a meltdown when he just talked to Dan. Dan, who he trusted, who he knew, who was only one person. But if he was doing it for a video, he could do it in smaller pieces, calm down in between. And if even just the thought that he might be was making people happier and more confident in themselves, it would help a lot of people to tell them. And it wasn’t like he was ashamed, he just didn’t talk about it.  
  
“At some point, yeah.” he mumbled. “I never told anyone before you though. I mean, my parents know and Martyn knows, but they were there when I was diagnosed. I’ve never actually talked about it before.”  
  
Dan looked up at him then. “Nobody? Why not?”  
  
“Because as a kid, I didn’t even know about it. Then… because people make a big deal out of it. I mean, you’ve seen what people are saying.” he mumbled. “And that’s just going against speculation.”  
  
“Not really, I’ve only seen people saying that you might be.” Dan said quietly.  
  
“Well, some people are flat out saying that I’m not. That they’d be able to tell if I am.” he said quietly. “Some people are saying that if I am, I’m only slightly autistic, or must be high functioning. And that’s all just… it’s bullshit. Some people are mad that people think I am for some reason.”  
  
Dan reached up, brushing Phil’s hair aside. “You don’t have to tell anybody.”  
  
“I know I don’t have to. But I’m not ashamed of it. And it would help a lot of people. And maybe… maybe being open about it would help me too. You know that I’ve wanted to get more personal with my fans for awhile now. I can’t exactly get more personal if I’m hiding who I am.”  
  
“Well, no matter what, you’ve got me.” Dan said quietly.  
  
“Dan? Will you stay with me tonight?”  
  
“Of course.” Dan said quietly. “We should have dinner first though.”  
  
They ate faster than normal, both of them knowing that Phil would feel better if he slept sooner.  
  
It wasn’t like they hadn’t cuddled before, but this was different. Dan started curled up by Phil’s side, and Phil pulled him on top of him again. In response to the quiet squeak that Dan would later deny making, Phil decided to explain.  
  
“Pressure’s good.” he mumbled. “Especially from you.”  
  
“Yeah?” Dan said quietly, already falling asleep.  
  
“You smell nice too.” He paused for a moment, looking down at Dan. “That’s weird, isn’t it?”  
  
“Maybe. I don’t mind though.” Dan said. “It’s just one of those things you do. Tell people they smell nice.”  
  
Phil smiled a little, closing his eyes as he drifted off.

**April 2018**

Phil knew going in that he probably wasn’t going to edit the video much, and if there was editing that needed to happen, he’d have Dan do it. But he thought that he could probably manage it in one take, and if he got too emotional… well, maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.  
  
He set up the camera, sitting cross-legged on the corner of his bed. He had an idea of how he would say it, but he wasn’t exactly sure yet. He looked at what he looked like in the camera, finding that the new confidence that had come with the quiff had seemingly all faded. He looked the way he felt. Small, and scared.  
  
He looked at the camera again and sighed quietly before speaking.

_“So, I’m sorry if this video bounces around a lot, I’m trying to do it in one take, you’ll understand why as you watch it.”_  
  
There. If he ended up not doing much editing, at least he explained it a bit. People would understand.  
  
_“Hi guys! So I’m kind of bringing back one of my old series’, Reasons why I was a weird kid. But it’s more like that two-hour finale that you get that ties everything up and makes it all kind of… make sense. Because this isn’t about reasons why I was a weird kid. It’s about the reason behind the reasons why I was a weird kid.”_  
  
He looked down for a moment, biting his lip.  
  
_“For years now, people have been making posts, theories about me and Dan, and theories about each of us individually. And some of them are flat out wrong. But some of them… are true. And there’s one in particular that I’ve wanted to talk about for… over a year now._  
  
_“A lot of you probably remember back in February of last year when Dan mentioned people thinking that I might be autistic in his liveshow.”_  
  
_“Yeah. Well, what he said wasn’t… exactly the best wording, but it got the idea across, that you can’t really say anything about what people who you’ve seen on the internet have or don’t have. But the thing is… those people aren’t wrong. I am autistic. I talked to Dan about it that day, and I’d never talked to anyone about it before. My family knew, but that was it.”_  
  
He reached up to play with his hair, only remembering then that he’d changed his haircut and couldn’t hide behind his fringe anymore.  
  
_“I don’t really remember when I was diagnosed, because my parents didn’t actually tell me at first. I know that I was really young, that’s pretty much it. They meant well, but it really only made things harder for me. They didn’t want me to use it as an excuse, whatever that means, and it just meant that when I was fifteen and found out, I was… well, I felt stupid for not realizing. I was mad at my parents for hiding something so important about me from me for so long. And I turned to Martyn. What really bothered me was that he knew too. He knew before I did.”_  
  
Phil was already getting upset, more angry than anything else. He liked to tell himself that he wasn’t mad about it anymore, it had been 16 years, but he really was. He thought about taking a break for a second, but thought that he might not come back to it.  
  
_“Martyn was the best about everything, really. My parents still wanted me to be a normal kid, so they discouraged me from doing things that were visibly weird. Martyn would lie on top of me if I got too upset, because he knew it was what calmed me down best. Then we got older, and that was too weird for him to do… I mean, he was a teenager, being weird was pretty much the opposite of what he wanted._  
  
_“But, when I found out, I was actually really happy. That's the thing, all the time I see people apologizing when they find out someone is autistic. Apologizing when someone finds out. But finding out really helped me. Like, really helped me. I mean, I’d just been completely lost, I didn’t know what was wrong with me. And when I found out, I knew that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. I wasn't just a weird kid anymore. I was an autistic kid, there was a reason that I was like that, and there was a name for it. And if there’s a name for it, that meant that there were other people like me. Aside from being mad at my parents for hiding it, it was one of the happiest days of my life._  
  
_“Then I ended up trying to do research on autism. Because I mean, you find something out about yourself, you want to know more. And the key word in that is trying. The thing is… now, there’s a lot of information out there that’s rubbish. That’s flat out lies, some of it. But at least there’s information, and you can find good information in there. When I was fifteen, I had nothing. I had nobody to look up to, because there weren’t really any autistic celebrities who were open about it. There weren’t many autistic characters in popular media. We pretty much just had Rain Man and that’s awful. And it's not much better now, but there's something._  
  
_“I think that really, I ended up more lost than where I started. I knew why I was different, and I knew there were other people like me. But I thought that to be worth anything, I had to be perfect. And since then, that’s what I’ve been trying to be. This perfect, amazing guy who never did anything wrong. Because if I did something wrong, that meant I was making my parents’ lives harder by being autistic. It meant that I was stupid. That I was…”_  
  
He cut himself off. Even as an example, he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He figured he could talk about that later, maybe. Maybe he’d make another video eventually. For now, he changed the subject.  
  
_“I think that my teachers caught on to me being autistic, really. Or at least to being… different somehow. My parents never told them, but they were always telling me I was doing a great job for doing almost as well as the other students._  
  
_“Thing is, being a YouTuber isn't exactly a perfect job. I mean I love it, but people don’t think it’s a real job. So for a long time, I felt like I was letting everyone down. Like I was some burden on Dan, because even though we have literally the same job, it felt like less for me. Because I'm autistic, so I have to be perfect. Because I have multiple degrees that I could be using. Because of all this crap I put on myself, because I put all these standards on myself._  
  
_“Then a couple years ago these posts started cropping up, theorizing about whether or not I’m autistic. And at first, I thought it meant I had to hide it better. But then I read the posts, and I realized something. Even just noticing that I have a couple autistic traits was making other autistic people feel better about themselves. Helped people figure themselves out. It made people feel like it was possible for them to be liked by people. And I’ll probably make another video about this at some point, actually going into detail about my experiences, but that was enough to make me happy with what I'm doing._  
  
_“Like, I wasn't not happy with it before, I've always loved making videos, it just always felt like I could be doing more. Like I could be really helping people. But when I read these posts, I realized that I was helping people. I was helping people who were lost like I was when I was younger. I was helping people who don’t really have people to help them. At least not in the way that they needed it.”_  
  
And fuck, he was almost crying. He had to be careful, because if he actually started crying he'd either have to leave it in and deal with people focusing on that instead of the message, calling him cute, using it in fanfiction because they had an accurate description now, or he would have to edit the video. And he really didn’t feel like dealing with either one of those. So he moved on again.  
  
_“I realized a lot later, like, within the past year, that if these posts each had a handful of sources for things, that meant that there might be actual resources out there. So I started doing research, and I found out that there were actually loads of people with stories like mine. People who grew up knowing they were different, and not knowing why. And I decided that I wanted to be one of the people who puts their story out there. Who lets everyone know that they’re not alone in this. I decided to be the person I wish that I had when I was younger. The person I needed when I was fifteen._  
  
_“April is Autism Acceptance Month. And what I want to say to everybody is check the organizations you’re supporting, see if they have any autistic people on their board and if autistic people support them. Support autistic people, and all of our weird behaviour for what it is - a part of who we are. And you don't know who is and isn't autistic. I’ve put some resources down below, so please make sure to check them out._  
  
_“And if you’re autistic, I want you to remember that you’re not alone, that there are people like you out here. That we can do this. And you are worth it, perfect or not.”_  
  
He reached up and turned off the camera, wiping the traces of tears from his eye with his other hand. It seemed like it didn’t really need editing, that he could just trim off the beginning where he awkwardly got sat down and then post it. Which meant he didn't have to hear himself getting worked up. He didn’t have to see himself so anxious, didn’t have to listen to himself talking.  
  
Dan was there a moment after the camera was off, pulling Phil into his arms. Phil knew he'd been listening, but having him there and having him here felt different. Having him here was so much better.  
  
Phil rest his head on Dan’s chest, holding onto his shirt tightly. He curled up, and Dan started rocking slightly in order to calm him down.  
  
“It’s alright, Phil. I’ve got you, I’ll always be here for you.”

__

\---

“How long has it been up?” Dan asked. As soon as Phil had put the video out, they'd curled up on the sofa and set movies that they weren't paying attention to going. Dan had gone off and popped popcorn, which Phil had been idly eating more for the texture than the actual taste this time. He was almost asleep on Dan's chest, playing with a loose string on his sleeve. He was still stressed, still felt smaller than he was.  
  
“Three hours.”  
  
“You check the comments yet?” Phil just shook his head in response, and Dan sighed quietly. It was better that he didn’t, he was sure. But Phil always checked comments. “You want me to check for you?”  
  
He waited until Phil nodded to pick up Phil's phone, go to his channel, and check on the video.  
  
Some of the comments were bad. A handful were bad enough that he didn't ask Phil before blocking them. And he focused on those like hell but knew that he didn’t want Phil to. It wasn’t long before he started seeing a slightly obnoxious number of people going “omg i knew it!!!!” A horrifying number trying to explain to him how it wasn’t possible, or trying to explain how autism works to him for some reason. After that, he started seeing the comments that he’d been hoping for. The ones that Phil had made the video for.

_you’re autistic?? me too!!! omg_

_the same thing happened to me! my parents just didnt tell me for years_

_its super nice to see someone like me be liked so much ♥_

_cool shit my dude_

_do you have any favorite stims/stim objects??_

_Phil im so happy you’re talking about this, i’ve never seen anyone talk about it before like this_

_hey talking about this can be really hard, hope you’re okay_

_were you crying at the end there?? i hope you’re taking care of yourself_

_its rlly nice to hear one of my favorite youtubers talk about smth i also have, also what r ur fave stims! nd do u also do u have/what are ur special interests? i think that wld make a neat video or livestream to talk abt them!!!!!!_

_Have you checked out Amythest Schaber? They’re an autistic adult and they explain things really well._

_I can’t wait to show this to my cousin, she’s autistic and she loves you!_

Dan read off the first handful of good comments he found, running his fingers through Phil’s hair. “You feeling better?”  
  
Phil nodded slightly, though he didn’t move from his spot curled up in Dan’s lap. It was times like these that made even their friends think that maybe they were a couple. When they spent hours curled up together, when they shared a bed just because, when they somehow just knew what the other was thinking, when they were out and insisted on going home together even though it wasn’t really necessary. He guessed they did make it easy to think that they were a couple.  
  
“You ready to go to bed?” He nodded again, and Dan carefully lifted Phil. Sometimes it surprised him that he could actually lift him. After all, Phil wasn't exactly small, being over 6 feet tall. But Dan was even taller, and Phil did his best to make it easier, staying curled up tightly and holding onto him.  
  
“Want me to stay with you?” Another nod. “My room or yours?” Phil gently tapped Dan’s chest a couple times, and Dan went to his own room instead of Phil’s.  
  
They'd figured out how to communicate without speaking years ago, and sometimes it was like they could read each other's minds. But it wasn't always like this. Since Phil had told Dan, the language had gained another level. Almost a new dialect for new situations. Dan had learned what Phil meant when he communicated through tapping. He learned what everything meant. He learned to see the difference between excited flapping and distressed flapping, he'd learned which stims meant Phil was happy, which ones he did for stress relief, which ones he did when he was stressed that didn't help. What meant that he needed to go home soon, which ones were in fact just because his mind was bored. Which ones meant he needed Dan to fuck off for awhile and leave him alone, and which meant he needed Dan to come comfort him. And Phil was the first to admit that Dan knew the language better than he did.  
  
He set Phil down on the bed, taking off his glasses and setting them on the bedside table. It wasn’t often that Phil needed Dan to do this, but the day had been exhausting for him, he’d wiped himself out with his video, talking about what he knew people would judge him for. He was scared, overwhelmed, and frankly, he was at a point that he did need somebody to take care of him. His glasses were closely followed by his jeans, folded and set over the back of a chair along with his shirt. Sometimes, this made him feel like a burden, like he was some fuck-up who couldn't even get himself ready for bed. But others, like today, it just made him feel cared for. It showed him that Dan would do anything for him.  
  
As Dan was undressing, Phil turned to face Dan’s side of the bed, curling just slightly. When he slept, he’d always liked holding something, not exactly knowing what to do with his arms otherwise. And he'd found that his favorite something to hold was actually a someone. Dan fit in his arms nicely, and he was always warm against him. Dan was familiar, and never seemed to mind that Phil probably held him a bit too tightly. And Dan was the constant in his life for the past nine years. He was always there, and even though he didn't know, he'd always been happy to help him.  
  
The moment Dan pressed back against him, Phil was holding him close. Dan held his hand gently, smiling. “I’m proud of you, you did a great job today.”  
  
“Thanks…” Phil mumbled, pressing closer to him. Dan was always comforting to him, soft and warm, and always so gentle when he needed it. And he always knew what Phil needed. The last thing he remembered before falling asleep was Dan’s hand on his arm, a single, slow movement as he tried to comfort him.

\---

They spent the next few nights like that, cuddled up together in Dan’s bed. Some nights, Phil was wiped out. Others, he just wanted to. And they were both happy to share a bed just because. After nearly a week of it, Phil noticed that Dan seemed happier too. He supposed there was something about sleeping with someone next to you that just made things seem better. Made it seem almost like you had things figured out.  
  
For once, Phil woke up later than Dan. Phil sat up and looked around for a moment, then threw on one of Dan’s pairs of sweatpants and put his glasses on before going out to the kitchen. He found that his nose hadn’t betrayed him this time, and the pancakes he smelled were actually being made in their flat this time.  
  
“You making me breakfast?”  
  
Dan turned and looked at him. “No, I'm making myself pancakes and letting you suffer.” he said, rolling his eyes. “Yeah. Thought you might appreciate it.”  
  
Phil smiled, hugging Dan from behind as he kept cooking. “Thank you.” They'd been much more tactile the past year, Phil having explained why he was so touchy with Dan.  
  
Dan turned and kissed Phil gently. “Now get off me, get some plates.”  
  
A few minutes later, they were seated across from each other at their little table with their breakfasts, each playing some pointless game on their phones. All too often, Phil got completely absorbed by whatever game he was playing, and it usually took quite a bit to get him to notice anything happening around him.  
  
Phil jumped as he heard the clatter of Dan dropping his fork, looking up to see Dan setting his phone on the table with his eyes locked on Phil. Phil tilted his head slightly, staring back at him.  
  
“I kissed you.”  
  
Phil had to think about it for a second before remembering when it happened. “You did.”  
  
“Should… should I not have?”  
  
Phil hesitated for a moment, then leaned across the table and kissed Dan again. “You definitely should have.” he said quietly, standing up and putting his plate in the sink before going to sit in the lounge, leaving Dan gaping at the table.


End file.
